ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Online @20: dreams, data and downloads
Jonathan Murphy
Technology & Creativity Blog editor
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Twenty years ago this week, the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ launched its first bulletin board, which was part of its first foray in web publishing β known as the Networking Club. This was an online spin-off from a ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ 2 TV series βThe Netβ commissioned in 1994 by ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Education to investigate this new technological phenomenon. The Networking Club was subscription-funded (Β£12 per month) offering members the chance to get online, since ISPs were few and far between in those days. And so the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ on the web was born.
![](https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/320xn/p01z2plh.jpg)
The first ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ homepage
Last month we celebrated our 20th birthday at a guest panel event at New Broadcasting House β you can see .
And today weβre publishing our own - with the help of colleagues on theteam. It features interviews with some of the pioneers of ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Online, including Brandon Butterworth who first registered the bbc.co.uk domain in 1991, George Auckland, one of the founders of the Networking Club and Ben Lavender, whose dream in 2003 eventually became the iPlayer. Thereβs also some crystal-ball gazing into the future from Jemima Kiss, head of technology at the Guardian and Bill Thompson, broadcaster and the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔβs head of archive development partnerships.
Itβs one of the first outings for the new iWonder timeline format β just another example of how ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Online is changing and innovating over the years.
Jonathan Murphy is Senior Editorial Development Executive, ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Online